*tap tap tap* Is this thing on?
It’s been a minute since I posted. Life got in the way. And now we’re in the middle of a pandemic and I suddenly feel the need to reach out. But we’ll get back to that.
Let’s sum up the last four years quickly: I went through an ugly and contentious divorce, I moved twice, I sold a house, I ended up living on the same street as my ex, I have a full time job, I have 50/50 custody of the boys, and I’m dating a man who makes me deliriously happy.
The details of all that would probably make your hair turn white if I ever shared them but this isn’t the forum or the time and frankly, it’s all water under the bridge at this point. There’s nothing to be gained in rehashing. We have settled into some semblance of normality with regard to what being a divorced family looks like for us and we’re just trying to make it work day to day.
Liam is now 15 and a freshman in high school. Jamie is 11 and a 5th grader. Middle school next year. I think they’re both pretty fucking fantastic.
Now, back to this pandemic thing. Whew.
I have worked full time from home for three years for a company you definitely know the name of if you live in the region. It’s been mostly ok to good and the working from home part has given me some real flexibility when I needed it. So when everything shut down it was business as usual for me.
Except now my kids are home all the time and I get to be their part time teacher. At least during the summers I wasn’t trying to facilitate school work, too. For the most part, they’re pretty good about being self-directed but I’m still doing a lot of “what do you have today? What is due? Did you get X assignment done? Let’s email the teacher.” kind of stuff. Also, I hated fractions in elementary school and SURPRISE! I still hate them now.
While it would seem like not a big deal to be juggling all this because working from home is old hat for me, the fact is my focus is SHOT. I might be used to sitting at my computer all day and having good habits instilled for boundaries between work and life, but that does not help when I can’t stop looking at the trainwreck occurring in slow motion all around me. Add in having to stop what I’m doing and help a kid with school at random intervals and I’m lucky I have any productivity at all.
Also, have I mentioned that I’m keeping everyone I love alive through the power of my mind? Yeah, there’s that, too.
I know I’m not the only one dealing with all of this. I know I’m lucky to still have my job at all, for fuck’s sake. I don’t know how any of us are doing this and staying even the tiniest bit sane.
I’ve had online happy hours with friends for the last two weeks and it’s been great to be able to interact with people that way but it’s Week 3 of isolation and I’m starting to really get antsy now. My day to day routine hasn’t changed much from before all this started, and I’m certainly MORE busy than I was before just trying to keep all the balls a’jugglin’, but I am starting to tire of the same four walls, the same indoor activities, the same foods I stocked, the same EVERYTHING. And yet holy SHIT do I not want to go anywhere near a pubic space right now. A park for a walk? Sure that’s allowed. But there’s 80 bajillion other people there and none of them seem to know what the fuck 6 feet looks like. My neighborhood is dense and you can’t step a toe out of doors without finding SOMEONE out there walking their dog for the 50th time that day and no, they don’t know what 6 feet is either. Go away. Go home. Take your germs with you. Keep away from me and mine.
I have a few thousand thoughts about how all this is playing out in this country, the complete lack of a federal response or plan, and how terrified all that makes me but let’s save that for future posts.
Hello from isolation. How YOU doin’?
tsuburbanlife.wordpress.com 